


Spock Comes Out

by TheBreakfastGenie



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Bones POV, Bones cusses, Gen, Humor, National Coming Out Day, Spock is gay, there's a sex pollen adjacent concept but no one fucks or anything it's chill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-12
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-12-09 15:40:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20997239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBreakfastGenie/pseuds/TheBreakfastGenie
Summary: The events leading up to Spock coming out to the bridge crew as gay, as told from Leonard McCoy's point of view. Written for National Coming Out Day 2019.





	Spock Comes Out

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this idea for a while and I wanted to write it for National Coming Out Day, since it's about coming out. It took on a life of its own but it never left its roots. I hope you enjoy!

“Well, I’m glad that’s over with.”  
Leonard McCoy had just had the most exhausting—not to mention annoying—72 hours of his life. He was sure in a week or two these last three days would be bumped down to second or third-worst at the most, because that was what life was like on the starship fucking Enterprise, but he claimed this moment to revel in just how much ass his job sucked. 

In between his duties as chief medical officer and playing confidant to the maniac everyone called Captain, McCoy occasionally found the time to dabble in biomedical research. Christine Chapel had been a full-time researcher before she signed up with Starfleet, and yet neither of them had managed to come up with any explanation for all of the goddamn pheromones. Nor could they find any evolutionary advantage to pheromones that made entire segments of society absolutely lose their minds. And then, of course, it was his job to invent a compound that would a) suppress the symptoms and b) not kill any of the crew, and he usually had about half an hour to do it. 

Three days ago the Enterprise had landed on an uncharted planet and been greeted by the locals, who called themselves the Ondora. The Ondora had been plenty welcoming, and several things had happened: 1) The captain, with permission from the local government, had sent a landing party to the planet’s surface to collect scientific samples. The party had been comprised of seven officers, six of them male, and had been led by Spock, which would ultimately turn out to be a good thing. 2) An Ondroa scientist had been sent to act as a liaison with the landing party. 3) Captain Kirk, grateful for the exceptional hospitality, had invited a delegation of Ondora onboard the Enterprise. 4) Spock and Lieutenant Anna Reed beamed back to the ship with five unconscious officers and a bewildered Ondora scientist. 

The men were unconscious as the result of several carefully administered Vulcan nerve pinches, and it would eventually transpire that after spending close to an hour in the company of the Ondora scientist, the five officers had become so overcome with lust they had begun to slip into madness. A quick quarantine of the Ondora delegation and a few tests on the Ondora scientist, performed by the unflappable Christine Chapel, had determined that the Ondora females secreted a particular pheromone that had an unpredictably strong effect on males from other species. Further testing revealed that, due to a genetic mutation, their Ondora colleague’s pheromones were especially potent. 

McCoy had, naturally, provided an antidote, and Uhura had been able to salvage relations with the Ondora, and everything had turned out more or less alright, in the end, but now that the reports were done McCoy had some time on his hands and he was ready to complain. 

So he went to the bridge. 

The senior officers were all present, even though he was fairly certain their shift had ended hours ago, and if Scotty was supposed to be anywhere it was the engine room. 

“She was a charming lass, though, wasn’t she?” Scotty lamented. 

“That’s the hormones talking, Scotty,” Jim Kirk replied from the captain’s chair. 

Pheromones, McCoy silently corrected. 

“Aye, sir, but whose hormones, hers or mine?”  
Scotty winked devilishly and Jim Kirk let out a huge guffaw. 

“No man can resist her charms, I suppose,” Jim Kirk sighed. 

“Except him,” McCoy announced his presence by shooting a targeted glance at the pair of pointed ears hovering above the science station. 

Spock’s resistance to the Ondora pheromones had actually been vital to containing the situation, as McCoy doubted Lieutenant Reed could have incapacitated all six crewmen on her own, but McCoy wasn’t about to point that out. It annoyed him that Spock had been able to do his job as normal, while McCoy had had to rely on Chapel to do his. 

“I guess she’s only irresistible to red-blooded males,” McCoy quipped, “not the green variety.” It was low to take shots at Spock’s Vulcan physiology, but McCoy had never been one for the high road. Out of the corner of his eye, McCoy saw Jim Kirk suppressing a giggle with a frown of disapproval. 

“I do not believe my resistance was due to my Vulcan biology,” Spock said smoothly, the way one would discuss a minor curiosity. “I reacted as any human male would have in my position.”

McCoy’s eyes about bugged out of his head. He strode closer to the science station, stopping himself just to the left of the captain’s chair. 

“Any human male would..? Spock, you saw what happened to Ramirez and the others. You brought them back, for god’s sake!”

Spock nodded. 

“Indeed. I have reviewed the findings of your and Nurse Chapel’s research on the Ondora, and have determined that the Ondoran pheromone acts to augment the innate sexuality of males in proximity to the female. It would appear it evolved due to a severe gender imbalance on Ondora, brought on by several factors that led to an unusually high mortality rate for males. In order for the species to survive, each Ondoran male must reproduce with as many female Ondora as possible. The behavior has not been necessary for at least several hundred years, but the biological imperative remains.”

McCoy rolled his eyes.

“This is all very interesting, Spock,” emphasizing his sarcasm on the very, “but what does it have to do with you?”

“I am coming to that, doctor,” Spock said cooly. 

McCoy had only known Spock since the beginning of the mission, a little under a year ago, and sometimes it was hard to read if Spock’s coldness was deliberate, or simply an effect of what McCoy called the severe emotional detachment characteristic of Vulcans. This time, McCoy was certain Spock knew exactly was he was doing. 

“Your data also indicates that the pheromone’s function is limited by the subject’s innate sexual orientation. From this I was able to conclude that my own reaction, that is to say, no reaction at all, to the pheromones of the Ondoran female, is completely normal for a male of any species, provided that he is gay.” 

Spock stopped speaking, and for a moment the entire bridge fell silent. It was Sulu who finally spoke up. 

“Are you saying you’re gay, Mr. Spock?” he asked timidly. 

“That is exactly what I said, Mr. Sulu,” Spock replied curtly, and this time McCoy didn’t think it was on purpose. 

“Congratulations,” Chekov muttered feebly from the navigator’s seat beside Sulu. 

“Thank you, Mr. Chekov,” said Spock cordially. 

McCoy was only half paying attention to the scene playing out in front of him, because to his right Jim Kirk’s face was turning pale and clammy, and he looked dangerously close to face planting on the bridge. 

McCoy leaned in close to the captain, discreetly pinching the skin on his friend’s upper arm between two sharp fingernails. 

“Jim, if you swoon, so help me god…” he hissed into the man’s ear. Jim Kirk whimpered slightly, inaudible to anyone but McCoy. Groaning internally, McCoy reached into his medkit, silently congratulating himself on always bringing it along on his visits to the bridge. Spock wasn’t the only one who was good in a crisis. McCoy with drew a miniature hypospray, loaded with a mild stimulant, and hid it in the flat of his palm as he pressed it into Kirk’s arm. He patted the injection sight gently. 

“Feeling better?” he whispered. Jim nodded imperceptibly. McCoy sighed. This job never stopped being annoying, but at least it wasn’t boring.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment if you're so inclined. Happy International! Coming Out Day! I'm gay.


End file.
